


Grasping at Stars

by dezolis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Fatherhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 23:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dezolis/pseuds/dezolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The road of fatherhood is never easy, especially when you don't realize you're on the path.  Written for the asoiaf kinkmeme and based on the prompt:  raising a son - the first nightmare he had, the first fairy tale you told him, this first sword you gave him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grasping at Stars

You are not prepared for this. Just the thought of the boy opens the hole in your heart you’ve spent five years trying to fill with meaningless battles and endless drink. You try to will yourself calm, to stop the cold sweat that‘s breaking out all across your body. The Spider watches you, his satisfied grin letting you know he has your mark and no matter how you try to hide it, you will dance to whatever tune he sings.

His song is cruel in how much hope it gives you. The Spider sings of rightful heirs and restored dynasties and the knight that saves a day long thought lost and every note lets you believe you can be saved even as they remind you of the failures that damned you.

You can barely look at the boy. You’re afraid to. His silver hair, of the same soft silver hair you once longed to touch, falls in a mess to his shoulders and you want to scream at the Spider as he casually brushes it back to show off his prize. He saved the boy‘s life, the Spider boasts. He saved his life while you were buried in your cups and your misery. A simple swap of babes, that’s all it was. So simple, so easy, like setting a town alight and celebrating the crushing of a rebellion while waiting for the embers to die down.

The Spider’s smile grows wider. It’s your turn. There’s only one word to your song yet it sticks in your throat because you know you are not worthy to sing it. You believed in songs once. You believed in _his_ song and you haven’t the right to claim it for your own. Bells are your music now.

The boy looks up at you. You search for anything of his father you can find and the knot in your stomach twists and burns as you let yourself remember those eyes, those lips, the high arch of those cheeks. You can barely see the boy before you.

You will not break before the Spider. He already knows your sorrow; he’s written it down and filed it away to use for his own ends. That this end offers you atonement you don’t believe you deserve means nothing to him. You will not let him delight in the everything that it means to you. 

So you sing. The Spider writes a verse that will name you thief and betrayer and finally a drunken nothing but such disgrace is worth this chance to erase your true shame. You choke your anger down while the Spider trills. The eunuch is quite proud of himself, a luxury you no longer have.

The deal is sealed. You take the boy’s hand and his small fingers close lightly around yours. They’re fragile in your grasp; a careless gesture could snap them like twigs. You lead the boy away from the Spider and into the destiny it has become your responsibility to fulfill. The boy needs to skip to keep up with your steps.

Your heart is racing. The bells toll with each beat. You watch the boy, who looks back at the only life he can remember and then to you, the man who will give him back the life he is meant to have. There’s something hesitant and worried in his glances, but you continue on. You must. They boy is too young to understand the importance of your new mission. Even you, so much older than your true years, are confused at how quickly all has changed. But you must lead.

After a moment, he clutches you more tightly and with his free hand, digs a sweet from out of his pocket. In a timid voice, he asks if you would like a piece.

You think for the first time the thought that will become you mantra, your entire reason for living.

_I failed the father, I will not fail the son_.

***

The boy fidgets and squirms as you work the dye through his hair. Each command to stay still is met with a moment’s compliance before he starts moving again. When it’s done, you insist that it wasn’t so bad.

“It’s smelly,” he complains. “It’s all itchy too.” He scratches his head and waggles blue stained fingers in your face to try to make you see.

“It’s necessary,” you say. “We can’t have anyone noticing your hair or eyes.”

The boy emits a disgruntled whimper. He stretches his arm, bringing his fingers closer. The waggling this time leaves blue streaks in your beard.

“It does smell,” you admit. You concede on the itching too as it seeps into your beard. By reflex, you bring a hand soaked in even more dye up to scratch and make it worse. A curse escapes your lips before you can remember to contain yourself.

The boy’s eyes widen and then he collapses into giggles, all complaints forgotten.

You need to be more disciplined. You’re used to the company of sellswords, not six year old boys. Not young princes who look to you to see how they themselves will be.

The weight of it hits you. You aren’t meant for this. He isn’t meant for this. He was meant to sit by Rhaegar’s knee, to learn from one born of the blood his lessons of majesty and grace. You were meant to watch and yearn and know it was not your place.

And yet, now it is. You stand where Rhaegar should. Gods, what you would give to make that so. How quickly you would cast yourself to the seven hells to bring him back from the heavens.

But you can’t. You can only stand here with stinking blue dye dripping off your hands while the boy laughs himself sick over a profane word.

You have to do more. You will. “I’ll use a higher quality dye next time,” you say. A small, stupid promise but one you can achieve.

You can never make it right, but by all you hold holy, you will make it better.

***

You’ve been with him for more than a moon. Not a day of it has made you any surer you are fit for this task. Try as you can to shake it, you feel ill at ease around the boy. You never were the best around children. You knew that you would need them as your father’s only heir but never wanted the wife needed to acquire them. You were resigned to think of family as a duty, as your father thought of you. Then when you lost your lands and title, you were resigned to thinking of family as a myth.

You overstep your bounds thinking of the boy as family, you think. Yet the distance you impose makes you feel more foolish with every effort the boy makes to close it. 

He matched your reluctance only for a few days before deciding to embrace his new world. A scattering of words became stammered questions and then idle chatter. That tentative yet needy grasp relaxed into freely letting go and carelessly resuming.

Now, he wants you to tell him stories. He wants you to chase after him, to seek him when he hides and then wants to run after you. These are the games he knows. These are the only games he wishes to play. The boy expresses no knowledge or interest in the greater game centered around him.

You try to play along. You try to match his joy when he jumps on you and declares you caught. You try, but mostly you just force a smile and let a hand on his back stand in for the arms the boy wraps tightly around you. It’s unsettling how free the boy can be with affection. It’s foreign.

Comfort is not so readily given by one who doesn’t know it.

But the boy still seeks.

You don’t sleep well. Your last night of peace came before the day you learned the price Rhaegar paid for your failure. Ever since, your nights have been lying in bed and thinking of all you’ve done and couldn’t do and getting lost in a maze of memories and wishes that bleed into fretful dreams when sleep finally takes you. Tonight you have a reprieve from this pitiful routine in the form of the boy coming to stand at the foot of your bed hours after you put him in his own.

He clutches his toy dragon - a silly thing Varys gave him made of black cloth sewn together and stuffed with down - to his chest and stares at you with eyes bright and filled with fear.

“Is something wrong?” you ask. “Are you sick?”

“Bad dream,” he whispers.

You’re familiar with those. “You’ll forget it come the morrow,” you promise, though that’s not true for you.

That doesn’t soothe the boy. He continues to stare at you, the morrow and the peace it offers too far away. You don’t know what else to give. You never approached your father with your troubles when you were a child and you’ve spent the last five years thinking of them as a penance.

“Um, something to drink?” you stammer, ashamed to be proposing a lighter solution to the dark path you’ve chosen too often in the past.

The boy‘s head shakes no. While you try to think of other actions to take, he startles you by beginning to crawl up into the bed with you. He settles his body next to you, nestling into the crook of your arm and setting his dragon on your chest. 

The warmth of him overwhelms you. There’s a life beside you, the only piece of Rhaegar left in this world, and it depends on you. It needs you. It wants your consolation, your warmth.

“Story,” the boy demands softly.

You can do that. You pick an old favorite of yours. The boy nudges closer and smiles. He’s asleep again before you’re halfway through. You recite the rest in your mind to pass the time, watching the rise and fall of the boy’s chest. His sleep is peaceful.

When you wake at dawn, you can say the same for your own.

***  
It’s a cool morning, a good time to pick up your sword and take some swings. You grew used to the movement, whether for practice or for real, during your time with the Golden Company. You fear three moons of peace may have left you soft.

It certainly feels that way. Your muscles are burning after just a few strokes and those strokes are not as quick as they once were. The pain should be an embarrassment, but you find it reassuring. This you know. This you can work through.

Your hair is damp with sweat by the time you notice that the boy has abandoned his morning meal to take up his own arms and practice alongside you. His sword is a stick found in the dirt. There’s still a leaf that stubbornly clings to it even after a few shakes from the boy. Beyond his weapon, there’s something odd about the way the boy fights. His grasp on the stick is light. He stands sideways.

Then you remember the Spider’s friend, the man who housed the boy for those lost years. You saw the statue in the courtyard of his manse, heard him brag of his days as a bravo. You watched him fawn over the boy. It galls you for reasons you cannot name. _Presumption_ , you conclude and you set about correcting him.

“That’s Braavosi,” you say, “You are of Westeros, you’ll fight like a Westerosi.” _Like your father._

The boy stares in confusion. You take his hand and fix his grip on the stick. You pick up your own sword. “Like this,” you command.

The boy studies your feet and adjusts his own. You swing, He swings. You thrust. He thrusts. Move after move is repeated in miniature and you’re sorer than ever but the boy is giddy and keen and wants to go on and on.

You concede defeat by picking up your shield. Let the boy break his stick against that. He does and then quickly finds a second stick with which to do battle. A third, a fourth, a fifth. You stop counting. The boy gives himself a splinter and cries as if he’s been run through until you pick the wood out from his fingers and he’s back to smiling and hunting for another stick. Pain is such a fleeting concept for him.

Still more sticks and splinters for hours until he can barely raise his arms. “That’s enough for today,” you say. The boy nods with gratitude. You remember the training days of your youth and your obstinate refusals to admit you’ve reached your limit. Such an admission of weakness would never do among your fellow squires. You would have died of shame if you had shown it in front of Rhaegar.

Back indoors, the boy flops down on his belly onto his narrow cot lengthwise so his legs hang over the edge. He’s soon asleep, legs still dangling. You can only shake your head when you gently pick him up to put him in a proper position. You’ll let him nap until it’s time for your evening meal.

In the meanwhile, you try to find an alternative to sticks. Back outside, you find a piece of wood of the right size. You get your tools and start to carve.

The hours pass, shavings fall. It’s not much, this simple wooden sword you’ve carved, but it’ll serve the boy better than a stick. It’ll last longer and save on tears over splinters at least. The next time you venture into a market, you’ll find him a proper practice sword. For now, it’s time to wake the boy for dinner.

The boy stirs slowly, mumbling little ouches as he gets up, but once you hold up the sword, he forgets his tiredness.

“That’s mine?“ he says, not quite sure.

“I carved it for you.” You’re about to explain it’s only temporary until you can get him a real sword, but the boy interrupts by lunging towards you. He wraps an arm around your legs and uses the other to reach for his new weapon.

“Can we play some more?” he begs.

“No, you need to eat and rest more.”

He takes this refusal in his usual manner. He pouts and says ’please’ in his tiniest voice. 

“Tomorrow,” you promise.

The boy keeps the sword with him while eating, tucks it by his toy dragon at his bedtime. You admit the dragon is much more finely made, but you’re oddly proud of your effort, mostly because thought to do it.

***

You are the boy’s armor and the weapon to be wielded in the battle to regain his birthright. Others will be his teachers. The Spider has arranged everything. All you need do is join up with them.

The boy seems less than eager for this part of the plan to begin. He sits in front of you on your horse, his head bowed, and mumbles a litany of things he’d rather do than meet his future maester to the horse’s neck. You told him he could have a pony of his own to ride, but he said no. You wonder if he balked to keep you close enough to hear his objections.

“You’ll like him,” you say, despite not having met the man either. That the Spider chose him isn’t confidence building. He chose you as well.

“You like reading and listening to stories,” you continue. There was more to a maester’s teachings than that, but that was the heart of it. The boy did like to read. It was the first thing you noticed about him once you were on your own with him. Rhaegar loved to read too, starting so young that you wondered if he was trying to trick you when he told you the age. Rhaegar’s books held cleverer words than the ones the boy reads though. You hope this maester will introduce him to the same deeper studies.

“I like your stories,” the boy argues.

“I’m sure this Haldon knows the same stories and more.”

The boy slumps back against you with a sigh. “He won’t tell them right.”

“You can’t know that. He’s probably better at it than I am.”

The boy tilts his head up at you. You always see the purple in his eyes even with the dyed hair. This time, you see anger too. You don’t understand it.

“This will be good for you,” you insist. “You’ll need a proper education to be a good king.”

At six, maesters were Rhaegar’s only friends. That was another truth you had trouble believing when he revealed it. So many boys clamored for Rhaegar’s favor. How was it that you were the first to receive it?

You seem to have gained the boy’s disfavor. He doesn’t think much of a king’s education and leans forward to tell the horse’s neck as much. He makes it sound as if you’ll tie him to a chair in a dark cell and let the maester screech the knowledge into him. You’ll never have to question the boy’s imagination.

The boy eventually tires and spends the rest of the trip intermittently napping against your chest. You’re sure he’s awake when you reach the inn that is your destination, but he meets your telling him it’s time to dismount with silence. _Gods, he can be a stubborn thing_ , you think. 

You can be too. You try one last argument. “This maester can teach you things I never could. Your father loved picking the brains of his maesters. He craved the knowledge they held.”

“My father…” the boys mumbles. It’s an admission of consciousness at any rate.

“He would lose entire days to study,” you say, admiration filling your voice for a reason other than trying to convince him.

“Whole days? What about you?”

You were never studious, not with books anyway. If you had to admit it, you were more like the boy in wanting to play. That truth would not help your cause. Nor do you see how it’s relevant.

“I had a maester. I did my lessons.”

“That’s not what…”

The boy is interrupted by a man who must be Haldon shouting for your attention. It’s already a mark against him. The last thing you ever want is to be noticed. You can’t show your anger, not since you’ve been trying to persuade the boy to like him.

“He’s loud,” the boy says.

“He doesn’t know our rules yet.”

“You’ll have to teach him?”

You don’t know why he asks it as a question. You don’t know why, after you help him down from the horse, he clings to you as if the maester is a threat. You don’t know why, when Haldon extends his hand in greeting, the boy only puts forth two fingers to poke it before resuming his grip on your leg.

“He’s shy,” Haldon pronounces and you think that isn’t so. He was reticent the first few days you knew him, but adapted more quickly than you. You just trust that he will adapt once again.

He does - over days of insisting you attend every lesson he attends, over distrusting frowns any time you try to go someplace without him. But eventually, the boy settles and soon he is as you have always known him. You knew he would come to understand the value and necessity of his teachings. He had to as Rhaegar’s son.

When the Spider’s next letter finds you and brings news of a septa he has procured, that mincing titter that bleeds into his crafted words grates you like a poisoned rash yet the boy issues not a single complaint. His lessons done for the day, he only grabs the wooden sword he would not let you replace and does battle against the segment of air that represents the foes of the war Haldon’s been teaching him.

All the pieces of this puzzle ( _Game_ , you remind yourself, _never lose sight of your goal_ ) are assembling in perfect order. Though the air seems ready to claim victory, the boy is learning. He will continue to learn and grow and what you cannot give him, those that can will be found.

“Is she a nice lady?” the boy asks.

“You’ll like her.” The boy likes everyone he meets.

And then the war is done. The boy has surrendered and put down his sword to tell you, “You should like her too.”

You’re unsure why he says that. It’s not as if you have the intention not to. 

 

***

Aegon VI Targaryen’s seventh nameday falls on a day full of violent storms, keeping you shut inside your rooms instead of going to the mummer’s troupe the boy asked to see. He’s sullen, picking at the berry cakes you bought as a special treat and being neither terribly impressed nor convinced with your reasons why you’ll have to put it off until tomorrow.

Lady - no, Septa Lemore, you must call her - distracts him with a promise to make him a friend for his dragon. You think he’s getting old for such toys but the boy happily accepts.

He speaks with Lemore in whispers and announces he won’t let you see it until it’s done. The secrecy is unusual but you think nothing of it. He picks out a fabric, tucking it under his tunic so you can’t tell what it is. Both he and Lemore hunch over the table to block your view as they draw the pattern on the back and cut it out. Lemore does most of the sewing but says the wings will be easy enough for him to do. Several hours and a half dozen finger pricks later, it’s ready to be stuffed.

Finally the boy walks up to you holding it behind his back while Lemore smiles on. He pulls it out as if giving it to you and for a moment you’re confused by what they’ve produced. You assumed it would be another dragon and while the bright red thing in front of you has wings, the shape of them and the body both hold no resemblance to a dragon.

“Grifff. Griffin,” the boy explains. He shakes this toy representation of your family’s sigil, grinning and waiting for you to find it as amazing as he does.

You are amazed, though not for the reasons the boy is. He’s proud of the hand he had in its making. You’re wondering why he chose that beast to make. You’ve filled his head with stories of his father, hardly spoken of your own save where the two intersect. Perhaps it’s the false names you have chosen. Perhaps you’ve spoken more than you thought.

_Perhaps_ , you think, as the boy clutches his griffin to his chest and runs off to show it to Haldon, _the boy has listened more than I thought_.

The rain relents as night falls. Tomorrow, you tell the boy. You’ll have a proper celebration tomorrow. The boy smiles and thanks you and goes to bed early so that tomorrow will come a little quicker. As he sleeps, he hugs his griffon and dragon, red and black, together.

It’s the colors, you tell yourself, that make it seem so right.

***

The boy learns his letters and histories and numbers from Haldon. Lemore verses him in the faith. You…you’re not sure what you do these days. His safety, though always your first concern, is easily maintained as secluded as you keep him and your company. His training with the sword is proceeding well. His wooden sword is chipped with a crack in the hilt and will soon need replacement, whether the boy wants it or not. You, one day, will as well, whether you want it or not. You were a good knight in your prime but others were better and this is not your prime.

Your life is now watching and waiting. One day you will fulfill your promise. One day you will give the boy what was stolen from his father. One day, but not today and the inertia this fact brings stirs up your old sins and failures. You find it strange that you ever let them recede.

They are never more present than when the boy falls ill. A cough and a fever that Haldon tells you are nothing to worry over. He got over his bout with them quickly. You blame the fool for bringing it back with him from the market. Lemore’s efforts to soothe you are given the same reception.

A fever, a bloody fever, could destroy everything. The Great Springs Sickness that thinned the Targaryen dynasty weighs on your mind. Haldon’s insistence that you’re making a mammoth from a mouse just makes you more anxious.

You spend a day with the bells tolling every second watching him lie pale and motionless in his bed. His mother was so frail. Could he have inherited fragility from her? There’s an old sport you haven’t played in years. You realize now your resentment of Elia Martell was a petty notion. You never could have had what was given to her, even if she had stayed in Dorne and Rhaegar had never spoken her name in vows. It was an arrogant, foolish dream to think Rhaegar ever would have said your name in anything but friendship. If you had accepted that back in Stoney Sept, if you had never tried to be the gallant hero of a song no one in Westeros would ever sing aloud, you wouldn’t be sitting here soaked in fear for another imminent failure.

You tire but you refuse to sleep. Haldon and Lemore beg you to stop tormenting yourself and you can only think you haven’t done it enough. You place rags soaked in cold water across his brow. You pray to gods you never much cared for that this last remnant of the only person you ever believed in not be taken.

It’s the heart of night when the boy stirs. He blinks at you with heavy lidded eyes and you nearly choke on the relief rising in your gut. He mumbles your name and you’re on the bed beside him, peppering him with questions about how he feels without giving him a chance to answer.

He makes a small noise and rests his head on your leg. Water, he wants. A bit of bread, maybe a sweet? He must feel better. You don’t care what he asks for so long as he keeps asking. The boy does know how to ask.

His last request is typical. A story, a happy story with dragons and heroes and a happy ending. History has so little that meets these requirements so you look to the future and your dreams instead.

You tell him of a beautiful and wise dragon who dedicated his life to saving the fate of his fellow beasts. You tell the boy what a just and gracious ruler this dragon would have been over all the creatures. You speak of the monsters in the world that did not understand the hope the dragon was trying to give them. You tell him how those monsters lashed out blindly and everything spiraled so horribly out of control. How it came to be that those who should have served him best, served him worst and they sealed his fate. How he was taken from this world by the most unworthy of the monsters and the world suffered a loss it could not begin to fathom.

But the story and the world was not without hope. The dragon left a son behind him. Just a hatchling, he was spirited away by the beasts who understood the importance of his father’s vision to keep him safe. These beasts dedicated their lives to seeing the hatchling grow into a dragon as grand as his father.

A tired smile spreads across the boy’s face. “And he grew up big and strong?”

Yes, you tell him. Just like his father. And with those loyal creatures by his side, he vanquished the evil monster and all those like him and restored the world to the way it should be.

You feel ridiculous for this tale of childish longing. The boy likes it though. “You’ll have to tell it again,” he says.

_No_ , you think, _we’ll have to live it_.

***

You receive a letter from the Spider a few moons after you‘ve marked the boy‘s fourteenth nameday. The eunuch has finally located and put an end to Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen’s wanderings through the Free Cities. You’re curious why it took a man who could find a coin at the bottom of the Narrow Sea so long to do this but you don’t dwell on it. This is the first move he’s made in years, the first sign that your waiting might be over.

As you reread, the boy comes up behind you. This past year he’s gotten lanky almost to the point of awkwardness and where he once only came up to your waist, he can now peer over your shoulder merely by standing on his toes. He’ll have his father’s height when this growth spurt is through, you think.

You shoo him away before he can get too far in the letter. This is your task, your concern. All he is to do is continue his lessons with the same results he’s always had. The boy balks, sure he saw his aunt and uncle’s names, but you’re insistent. You’ll meet them when the plan requires it. Until then, they’ll only serve as a distraction.

The boy is dissuaded easily enough. He’s eager to resume his swordplay with Rolly, the newest member of your small group. He barely pays attention to anything else since the big man arrived. You can hardly blame him. For the first time, he’s using real armor and real, albeit blunted, weapons. You remember your own excitement from your training days in Kings Landing, the happiest days of your life, and how they were made happier when you finally traded your practice blade for live steel.

It makes you remember too, that silly toy sword you carved for the boy all those years ago. You thought it broken and discarded but you discovered it not long ago tucked carefully in the bottom of a chest along with the stuffed dragon and griffin. It surprised you what good condition they were in, especially since the boy had carried all three with him well after you thought he should put them away. You left them where you found them and said nothing to the boy. You’re hardly one to lecture others on clinging to the past.

You fold and refold the letter while you watch the boy don his leathers for the sparring match. Rolly’s keeping it light today. If the promise of the letter holds true, they’ll have harder work to do. You’ll have harder work to do.

You want this work. You’re desperate for it. You were given this second chance, it’s past time that you proved you are worthy of it. You need to fulfill your promise to the boy, and the promise you were never able to make to his father. You will give these idle years meaning and finally lessen your disgrace.

The boy is calling for you. For what, you don’t know. In your mind, you’re already on your way to Westeros, all of this but a preamble. You’ll serve this boy, save yourself.

Then finally you listen to the boy but, for a moment, it’s a man you see before you.

You always did get a little lost when looking for your salvation.


End file.
